Robert Marshall is an artist who draws and paints on reflective surfaces such as mirrors and Mylar. I spoke to him recently at his studio in Brooklyn. The atmosphere was more or less congenial. The following is an excerpt from the interview.
Robert Marshall: I’d like to ask you about documentation. These must be difficult to photograph.
Robert Marshall: Some of them are impossible to photograph.
RM: But you do photograph them. So it can’t be impossible.
RM: OK. Half-possible. But it’s impossible to do it accurately.
RM: Why?
RM: Each time there will be a different image.
RM: Isn’t that always true when you photograph a painting?
RM: No. Or only to a very slight extent. But with these it’s true to an enormous extent. It’s kind of essential to the work that you can’t document it.
RM: Why?
RM: Because they are reflective, each photograph will be different. It will reveal the conditions under which the piece was documented. If a different person takes the picture, the image won’t be the same – a different photographer will appear in it.
